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Illegal alien?

Took my passport application to the local Passport Canada service centre. They said it would take 4 weeks plus mailing time to get my passport if I submitted it through them. That’s cutting it too close. They told me the application process would go significantly faster if I took my application directly to the processing centre in Saskatoon. So Madeline and I made an unscheduled trip to Saskatoon this afternoon.

Things at the Passport Office went relatively quickly. Ran into my high school physics teacher there, too, of all places. Small world. I was at the Passport Office for about half an hour. It would have taken less time than that, except the girl looking after me had to confer with her boss a couple times.

You see, I had to fill in an extra page for my application because I am not a naturalized Canadian and neither of my parents were born in Canada. I explained how I acquired my citizenship (it was a legitimate acquisition, folks) and then she told me that the reason I had to fill out the extra page was that my citizenship may have expired. I was already a little nervous about arriving in Saskatoon and discovering that I was missing a page from my application or had dropped one of my passport pictures in downtown Prince Albert. The possibility of not actually being a citizen, and therefore ineligible for a passport, wasn’t helpful information.

I explained my citizenship process again: I received my Canadian citizenship at birth, even though I was born in the Netherlands, because my father, who was also born in the Netherlands, had acquired his Canadian citizenship by immigration in the late 40s or early 50s. She went back to her boss again and returned with better news. She had spoken too soon and citizenship probably wasn’t going to be an issue.

So I should have a passport in about 3 weeks, including mailing time.

My destination this afternoon was the federal building in Saskatoon. I spent 30 minutes or less there. The rest of the time: about 75 minutes drive to Saskatoon; 30 minutes driving through downtown Saskatoon trying to find a bloody parking spot; at least 60 minutes of driving (mostly idling, actually) between the federal building and the Cirle Drive/Idylwyld bridge to get out of the city (would have taken a more direct route, but there is construction on Idyldyld, so I got to that intersection by way of 22nd and Circle Drive, which in the end was probably no faster); 75 minutes from Saskatoon back home. So, to sum up: 240 minutes of driving/idling for less than 30 minutes of actual business. Saskatoon is a great city, but I hate it. At least, I hate in it.

It is a bad time of year to try to do anything downtown. I had four clients at work today and three of them phoned me just before their appointments were to start and said they would be late because of traffic/accidents/lack of parking etc. Give it a week and all will be back to normal….I sure hope so anyway!